The city of Shiraz had been spared destruction by the invading Mongols, when its local ruler had offered tributes and submission to Genghis Khan.

Shiraz was again spared by Tamerlane, when in 1382 the local monarch, Shah Shuja, had agreed to submit to the invader.

In the thirteenth century, Shiraz became a leading center of the arts and letters, thanks to the encouragement of its ruler and the presence of many Persian scholars and artists.

For this reason the city was named by classical geographers Dar al-‘Elm, the House of Knowledge.

Among the Iranian poets, mystics and philosophers born in Shiraz are the poets Sa'di and Hafez and the mystic Roozbehan.

Thus Shiraz has been nicknamed "The Athens of Iran".

Mohammed Shams-ud-Din Hafez, Iran's great lyric poet, although orphaned early, had obtained a thorough education in the Islamic sciences—Hafez means one who has memorized the entire Koran.

Widely acclaimed in his own day, his lyrics, “ghazals,” are notable for their beauty and bring to fruition the erotic, mystical, and bacchic themes that have long pervaded Persian poetry.

He spends virtually his entire life in the city of Shiraz, dying there in about 1390.